The story of how Jesus healed the man who was crippled from birth for 38 years, revealed another level of Faith that brought healing to him.
The pool of Bethesda was under close watch by the indisposed and impotent folks of Jerusalem; they eagerly awaited the slightest disturbance of the pool by God’s angel. Not only were they keenly watching the pool, everyone prepared themselves to be the first to get into it and be healed.
However, amidst the whole scenario, there was a crippled man who had given up on getting healed. He had no man to help him get into the pool as everyone lobbied for themselves first.
No one was kind enough to consider his predicament which had lasted eons. He was left alone to sort himself out but he couldn’t.
Luckily for him on that fateful day, Jesus passed by ,not only did he pass, the man’s state caught his attention. Why?
Probably because he was isolated.
The pool side was surely crowded, but here was the crippled man, bemoaning his crippled and unfortunate state in isolation.
When Jesus drew nearer, he asked him whether he would be healed but the man’s response reflected his desperation of having no one to help him get into the pool.
He had sat in dejection and watched how people got healed over the years, while he continued to wallow in self pity and sickness because no one cared to extend a helping hand to drop him in the pool at the appointed time.
He had barely finished giving his response when he was commanded by Jesus to rise, take his bed and walk.
The man obeyed and that ended his crippled state.
From the story line, we can extract the benefit of sole dependence on God.
The man didn’t give a direct answer when he was questioned about his willingness to be healed. The response of his helpless state of having no one to assist him was enough to demonstrate his faith.
Sometimes in life, there might be certain things we are desperately in need of, but the help of men seems to be far. They would either prefer to put themselves first, or anyone closely related to them before considering anyone else. This is the nature of the unregenerate man.
Nonetheless, that state of having no one to help you makes you vulnerable to God’s mercies. It isolates you for only what God can do for you.
Who knows, If you had the help of men, you might not need God’s help.
Therefore, we shouldn’t be sorrowful because no one seems to render a helping hand in our dire moments, rather, we should leverage on man’s refusal to help, to receive God’s abundant supply of help.
…that state of having no one to help you makes you vulnerable to God’s mercies. It isolates you for only what God can do for you.
If you have no man to help you, then you are evidently telling God that he’s the only one that can.
God can send the right set of people to help you if you trust him.
The Bible has enjoined us to always put our trust only in God and not in man, because they can fail.
God knows the right kind of help you need at every moment. The crippled man thought that his problem was having no man, whereas his real problem was his crippled state, and he needed to be healed.
Are we like that? We think that our problem is not having the right connection with people, but the actual issue lies unresolved.
This is why we must solely depend on God for all our needs.
God is able to help us at all times, hence we would boldly say, the LORD is our helper, and we will not fear what man shall do to us.
When we have the LORD, we shouldn’t worry about man’s refusal to help because the LORD is our sole source of help.